Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nevada passes law authorizing driverless cars

blogs.forbes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 214 posts

Re: Nevada passes law authorizing driverless cars

#51

Post by erikpukinskis »

bdhe wrote: post #26
DanielStraight wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you deal with the inherent inefficiency of having a separate vehicle for every passenger (or small group of passengers)? Publicness is not the only benefit of public transportation. Trains and buses are incredibly efficient per passenger mile. They also take up a lot less space than cars, and last longer and cost less per passenger to manufacture. Making a car driverless doesn't solve these problems.

A country like the US, especially with vast suburban areas, it isn't necessarily a strict dichotomy between public transport and driverless cars. We can have both. Especially in the west coast, American cities were built to be navigated by cars. Even today, the very fact that carpool lanes in most parts of California are designated for 2 people/car, not 3 implies we already have separate vehicles for each passenger.…

Google Transit already offers you choices when you want to go from A to B. It could do the same thing with driverless cars. Want to take one the whole way? That'll be 60 minutes and cost $12.50. Or you can can take the driverless car to the train, which will take you the rest of the way. $7.50, and takes 1h20 minutes.

Re: Nevada passes law authorizing driverless cars

#52

Post by spoold »

Cushman wrote: post #36
DanielStraight wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you deal with the inherent inefficiency of having a separate vehicle for every passenger (or small group of passengers)? Publicness is not the only benefit of public transportation. Trains and buses are incredibly efficient per passenger mile. They also take up a lot less space than cars, and last longer and cost less per passenger to manufacture. Making a car driverless doesn't solve these problems.

The de facto standard in this country is one dedicated car per person, which spends 90% of its time sitting in a parking space. Communally shared cars will be massively more efficient than that, and, unlike buses and trains, will actually replace dedicated vehicles for a majority — some day 100% — of users. The public transportation the public uses beats the one they don't. Not to mention that communal vehicles would…

"The de facto standard in this country"

Which country? It's a global problem (and this is a global forum). Kudos to Nevada for having the presence and foresight to pass this legislation. It opens up a world of possibilities for future transport options, and whilst it will take a while for the public to catch up and accept both the technology, and the transport changes it enables, this is a huge step in the right direction.

Re: Nevada passes law authorizing driverless cars

#53

Post by mkr-hn »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #51
bdhe wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A country like the US, especially with vast suburban areas, it isn't necessarily a strict dichotomy between public transport and driverless cars. We can have both. Especially in the west coast, American cities were built to be navigated by cars. Even today, the very fact that carpool lanes in most parts of California are designated for 2 people/car, not 3 implies we already have separate vehicles for each passenger.…

Google Transit already offers you choices when you want to go from A to B. It could do the same thing with driverless cars. Want to take one the whole way? That'll be 60 minutes and cost $12.50. Or you can can take the driverless car to the train, which will take you the rest of the way. $7.50, and takes 1h20 minutes.

I know someone who spent some time in one of Japan's smaller prefectures. He hated how all the trains stopped promptly at midnight, making late night things impossible. Something like this would let you take a train there and an automatic car back.

Re: Nevada passes law authorizing driverless cars

#54

Post by kmfrk »

mkr-hn wrote: post #6

I think driverless cars could be the future of public transportation. Instead of big trains and buses with limited reach, we would have thousands of public vehicles that take you where you need to go when you need to be there. It eliminates the big barriers to public transport--the lack of personal space, timing, and reach. No car? Just hop on the municipal/county dispatch website, request a car, pay your fee, and wa…

... And it's going to be around three years, until everyone takes them for granted and bitch about every minor niggle. :)

Re: Nevada passes law authorizing driverless cars

#55

Post by jws »

amalcon wrote: post #44
wccrawford wrote: post #3

I really didn't expect this to happen within 10 years. I'm amazed that this happened so fast.

Well, the technology has been nearly there for over a decade. The problems are all legal. The obvious part was that automated cars are illegal to begin with. Less obviously, the liability situation is unclear: who would be willing to accept liability for the driverless car? The company that makes it would be at a huge risk at the mass market stage, because there would be many cars. Therefore, they would be unwilling.…

How about the State requiring each car owner to have insurance which would cover to $X all damage caused by the car AND the State also limit claims to $X.[1]

The insurance companies with their phalanxes of clever quants can work out how dangerous each car model is and price it accordingly. Adam Smith's invisible hand can do the rest.

If the insurance companies get greedy and "certainly not conspire" to price high, then the car makers would be free to spin up their own correctly priced insurance companies and take the business in order allow car sales.

[1] Barring malice and probably a dozen other exceptions.

Re: Nevada passes law authorizing driverless cars

#56

Post by shii »

chacha102 wrote: post #37

I'm guessing that it will be really important to allow cops to disable autonomous cars, or at least force them to pull over and stop. I'm really interested in how they will handle that issue.

Ever watched Idiocracy? There's a mechanism in the cop cars that forced all cars to pull over and shutdown in that movie. Just hope it doesn't turn into this afterwards: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC_H2s7rMvE

Re: Nevada passes law authorizing driverless cars

#58

Post by [deleted] »

mkr-hn wrote: post #24
DanielStraight wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you deal with the inherent inefficiency of having a separate vehicle for every passenger (or small group of passengers)? Publicness is not the only benefit of public transportation. Trains and buses are incredibly efficient per passenger mile. They also take up a lot less space than cars, and last longer and cost less per passenger to manufacture. Making a car driverless doesn't solve these problems.

I think of this more as dealing with the present (and unpleasant) reality. I prefer buses and trains, but we haven't found a way to get people to fund and use them enough to make them viable outside big cities. A lot of the gridlock in my city comes from people doing stupid things that force other drivers to slow down to avoid a wreck. Automated cars would reduce the impact of bad drivers by removing them from the eq…

[deleted]

Re: Nevada passes law authorizing driverless cars

#59

Post by spoold »

mkr-hn wrote: post #24
DanielStraight wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you deal with the inherent inefficiency of having a separate vehicle for every passenger (or small group of passengers)? Publicness is not the only benefit of public transportation. Trains and buses are incredibly efficient per passenger mile. They also take up a lot less space than cars, and last longer and cost less per passenger to manufacture. Making a car driverless doesn't solve these problems.

I think of this more as dealing with the present (and unpleasant) reality. I prefer buses and trains, but we haven't found a way to get people to fund and use them enough to make them viable outside big cities. A lot of the gridlock in my city comes from people doing stupid things that force other drivers to slow down to avoid a wreck. Automated cars would reduce the impact of bad drivers by removing them from the eq…

"we haven't found a way to get people to fund and use them enough to make them viable outside big cities"

"We" being? I live in a village of It's not perfect, and funding /is/ a problem, but please don't assume that your experience is universal, or that yours is the only country represented here.

Re: Nevada passes law authorizing driverless cars

#60

Post by mkr-hn »

amalcon wrote: post #44
wccrawford wrote: post #3

I really didn't expect this to happen within 10 years. I'm amazed that this happened so fast.

Well, the technology has been nearly there for over a decade. The problems are all legal. The obvious part was that automated cars are illegal to begin with. Less obviously, the liability situation is unclear: who would be willing to accept liability for the driverless car? The company that makes it would be at a huge risk at the mass market stage, because there would be many cars. Therefore, they would be unwilling.…

Insurance companies can see how reliable these things have become, and they know how bad humans are at driving. Insurers will probably start mandating automation (or offering incentives) in the next 5-7 years.
Post reply on HN